"I want any rider approaching any jump to concentrate on rhythm. They should concentrate on HOW they get there, not where they get to." ~ Jimmy Wofford
"What is essential is not to tighten the legs during the dressage training, but rather to use them without effort while allowing them to hang softly near the horse’s sides." ~ Nuno Oliviera
Remember that even a COW can jump a 3 foot fence from a standstill... if it wants to. So never worry about whether or not your horse has enough scope to do lower level eventing or jumping. The bigger issue is whether or not you can keep him balanced at the canter.
The better the rider's seat, the more easily the horse can understand the rider's aids. So make working on developing and maintaining an independent seat a top priority!
"Sometimes doing the small things that others think is like watching paint dry, like taking the time to warm up at the walk, will give you a better foundation in which to improve upon your trot & canter work." ~ Joan Dunlap
"When you look at some of the Grand Prix horses in the warm-up area of a horse show, you can be fairly sure that some of them never really relaxed and stretched. As a result, the rider asks for collection, and the horse gets higher and shorter in the neck and tense in the back." ~ Hubertus Schmidt
Varying the degree of your half pass can improve your horse’s suppleness from all angles, as well as increasing his responsiveness to your aids within the movement. In other words, while going in half pass across the diagonal, half halt, and do a few strides with a steeper angle (more sideways than forward), then go forward again.
To achieve the lovely feeling of jumping "right out of your stride", you have to have the right canter for each situation. If you don't know what kind of canter you need for a particular jump… or are unable to create it exactly when you need it, you will be more likely to meet the jump awkwardly. This has less to do with the rider's "eye", and more to do with the awareness of the quality of the canter.
If you had to pick from these 2 horses based on their legs alone, which one would you pick? What specific faults, if any, do you find on either horse? (Click on Discussion title above, to join in or read this educational discussion.)
"Riders who lean back are driving the horse down in front. If they sit too strong, behind the vertical, then they are pushing the horse down, through and into the hand." ~ Carl Hester
"The absence of a correction is not a reward to a horse. The only thing that is a reward is ‘good girl’ or a pat on the neck or giving them a sugar. You can’t train a seal without fish." ~ Robert Dover
It is a good idea to ask yourself regularly throughout your rides…. "Am I working too hard here?" If you are, your aids are probably WAY too strong. Go back a step, and work on more finesse.
"What we want to start creating in these horses is an engine that is always running, where we don’t shift gears until we want to. It’s like revving your RPMs and waiting a moment before you shift up into that higher gear. But if you don’t have that energy in the lower gear, you might stall when you go to send them forward." ~ Laura Graves
"Every downward transition perfects the half halt. You don’t have to have a driving leg for the downward transition, you need a sustaining leg." ~ George Morris
"I’m not sure if it is chicken or egg, but the riders who sit in the middle of the movement, in the middle of their horse are the ones with the self-carriage." ~ Chris Hector
"The position and length of the horse’s neck, through its many anatomical interconnections with the trunk, has a direct biomechanical effect on the back. If the head is placed unnaturally deep or the neck is unnaturally shortened it will inevitably lead to movement faults and eventual health problems." ~ Angela McLeod
"Self carriage is really easy to see. The best thing you can do for self-carriage is the give and re-take of the reins. It is amazing how you forget to do that when you ride on your own." ~ Carl Hester
"I'm very visual. I also am good at making myself into a pretzel. Last night I thought of how a skier in slalom changes direction with subtle motion, otherwise they'll bite it. With that subtlety, my mare easily floated back and forth in the zig zag [half passes.]" ~ Annette Gaynes
You have to think about how you can get into your horse's head, to win him over to your side, rather than trying to muscle him around. Horses usually seek where they are most comfortable. Always keep that in mind.
It takes an experienced instructor to know whether a rider who has lost their confidence needs to move back to smaller jumps and more simple exercises, or if that rider instead needs to be shown the exact techniques that are going to fix their particular problem, and then pushed hard, so they can see how easily they really CAN do it.
"When a correctly positioned rider is viewed from the side, her whole leg will lie flat against the horse in a relaxed way with the knees and toes pointing forward. In order to achieve this position, you must develop the ability to stretch the inner adductor muscles in your thigh." ~ Sarah Geikie
"The greatest hindrance to driving the horse properly comes from riders stiffening their legs…. The horse cannot monitor tight legs as aids and will sour to the pressure, which he will interpret as a meaningless second girth." ~ Charles De Kunffy
"When the horse is forward, when the horse is using his hind leg more under the body and the neck falls down from out of the wither, then it doesn’t matter if the nose is a little behind the vertical if there is no pulling by the rider." ~ Johan Hamminga
A great instructor is always thinking and learning about new ideas and concepts, and is always looking for new ways to impart those ideas to their students. The minute one stops learning, one stops growing - and can become stagnant.
The Counted Walk is an "old school" Dressage exercise that I find to be highly overlooked and under utilized! It can be effective in improving the horse's balance and carriage, and to help him to better understand how to remain active behind even when going slowly.
It will also strengthen the horse, and address suppleness in the body in a unique way. Riders can use this exercise to teach their horses to respond to feather light aids. It can also be quite useful in improving Dressage movements such as the turn on the haunches, pirouettes, and the halt. And it can be a great way to build into half steps, the piaffe, and higher levels of collection. Read on to learn more about it! (Click on Article Title above to read full article)
"Imagine hanging a wet towel over your horse's back. The pressure of your leg aids needs to be similar to the pressure of the towel on the sides of your horse. Your horse should go on his own with this passive leg aid, and if he does not, you need to give him a firmer reminding aid." ~ Steffen Peters
"The key to successful half halts is, first, to have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve: Do you want your half halt to create more balance? More collection? More flexion? Self-carriage? Roundness? Second, you need to recognize--with listening aids--when your horse responds correctly so you can soften or give at the right moment. During your softening moment within the circle of aids, your whole body rewards the horse and tells him, 'That's what I wanted.' The horse feels this instantly. The quicker you notice your horse's positive response, the better trainer you are." ~ Oded Shimoni
It is perfectlynormalto feel nervous at times, but you DO have the ability to control and redirect your thoughts. Like anything else, it is a skill that you have to work at.
